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Showing posts with the label Gamification

Let the Wheel Decide

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Wheel Decide is a free online spinner tool that allows you to create your own digital wheels for decision making, prize giveaways, games, and more.The uses of Wheel Decide run as far as your imagination. In the EFL classroom and in education in general the wheels can be used for a variety of activities: Spin a wheel of questions, topics, or vocabulary terms. This is a great substitute for studying or revising, and since the topics shuffle, everyone stays on their toes. Pick a random student in class to answer a question or participate in a classroom activity. Engage your students by having them decide on the options whether they are questions, vocabulary or grammar items.  Use the wheel to randomly assign groups or teams. You can also randomly assign jobs to teams or individuals. Unlike you or your peers, Wheel Decide has no biases. Below you can find two wheels I made off the top of my head: one for playing vocabulary games and one for a pop quiz on irr...

Akinator, the Web Genie

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Twenty Questions is one of those "go to" games that require no preparation and can be used as a timesaver when the lesson finishes earlier than expected, as a student reward or even when you are too tired or ill to continue, (because let's be honest, teachers can have "one of those days"....). photo by  Karinamannott A fun alternative to the game is  Akinator, the Web Genie . Akinator is an internet game and mobile app based on 20 questions that can guess which character the player is thinking of by asking them a series of questions. It is  an atificial intelligence program that can "learn" the best questions to ask you.  What is interesting about the Akinator is that the more you challenge him the bigger his database becomes.  With Akinator students can have the chance to see questions modelled for them before they actually try to ask their own - asking questions is not as easy as it sounds for language learners especially in lower lev...

Learning Apps

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LearningApps.org is a Web 2.0 application that allows you to create interactive teaching modules to support your lessons. It is very simple and straightforward in its use and requires no special digital skills. Every module created is public and can be used by any teacher interested. photo by  Karita88 Among the formats offered are games like 'Who wants to be a millionaire?", matching pairs, clozed tests, crosswords,  activities on  audio/video material, group puzzles etc.  If you feel it is too much work you can search  among the already made modules, like for example this simple matching activity I created for my 1st Grade (of Junior High) students. It can be used as a pre-reading activity for  Halloween related lessons .